chip for tablets and smartphones that contains 192 computing “cores,” or mini-computers, for graphics applications. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said at a press conference in Las Vegas, ahead of the International Consumer Electronics Show, that he had given his marketing department the mission to promote the chip on a shoe-string budget. The crop circle received wide attention. Rumors of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia’s involvement appeared Sunday before the press conference. The circle was plowed under a few days after its discovery.

I agree, I deleted my link yesterday because I realised the blog hasnt been giving me what I was looking for for a long time. I’m only here because Google+ hasn’t noticed yet and I find myself wide awake at stupid o’clock in the morning.

10 posts in 16 days. Pretty slim pickings regardless of what cranks your wank??? Anyone looking for a purpose driven life surely is looking for alternatives.

I look forward to a reversal of this trend. I will keep the faith in the meantime. ((any editor could review the high count threads from the past and see what motivates contributions. Post a few of those???))

I think this kind of crap is exactly why JC Dvorak lets things go on and on and on.

Someone is clearly getting their jollies. The only question is, who?

Could it be Adam Curry? Or maybe it’s some other PC Magazine flunkie like Carlos? Or maybe it’s (dare I say it) Heir Lauderback?! The very same guy who seems to have shafted John C. Dvorak for his own show over there on Rev3.

OK. Keep guessing…

Meanwhile, ignorant little butt fucks like Bobbo never shut the fuck up. Bobbo, Bobo, BOOB or whatever it calls itself is clearly someone with ties to communist China. So could it be someone who had/has something to do with Roger Chang?!

Probably not. Yet, that thing that calls itself Bobbo actually thinks he/she/IT contributes something positive to the discussions when in reality this boob simpy has one agenda — to convert anyone stupid enough to listen into slavery!

That’s right Boob! I said YOU are clearly and obviously a proponent and big fan of SLAVERY! Because that’s exactly what you constantly advocate in favor of with your never ending leftist bullshit. But as far as I am concerned, you disgust me. And I suspect you disgust and anger most anyone else with the mental aquity of a slug (not including Dallas). So be sure and resopnd with some more of your usual rhetorical liberal crap (that I have no intention of replying to).

Clearly BOOB has been shut out of most other blogs. So naturally, that dipshit comes here which means less time to get into what the rest of us want — except Boob — more tech!

Keep talking/typing out your ass there Bobbo. Maybe you can everntually claim victory for shutting down your favorite TOILET too!

For anyone else. There’s always OTHER blogs to read, you know. Might I suggest those “syndicate” fellows? So the sooner we all STFU which will make BOOB quite happy, the more likely any protest of the ongoing bullshit Dvorak allows will be heard. However, I’m not going to hold my breath — I’m moving on! Life’s too short to deal with this cesspool any loonger.

I don’t comment much on the tech postings. I don’t have the background. Seems to me if DU posted some tech and some non tech at least every other day then all groups could be satisfied.

Culture, Politics, Religion? Yea verily. I just wish more people could bring a technical appreciation of facts to a values driven discussion. Know what I mean? …. more aquity.

I actually feel somewhat sorry for the Great Troll Pedro. He must be one of our more frustrated contributors here. Showed a massive background in … what was it…. non radiation imaging technology? Got into it with …. I forget who, who also held his ground. Nice to read. Course, I could have been totally buffaloed, not having that tech background.

There is something entirely disfunctional in anyone going into a forum to only complain, especially against other posters.

To each their own.

To our Good Editors: why not a commitment to posting at least “something” every day? Why not one tech, one politics, one culture, one religion every other day? Let the posts that go over 100 comments be bumped as interest drops so dramatically when not on first page? etc

….. I’m sure you all know this better than we do. CageMatch not even linked to anymore….. I stopped a few months back because no one could join.

Dummy Up and Sho off, what could be more ‘silicon spin’ or *silicopera* tech-talk than Nvidia trenching a farmers’ field as a marketing gimmick?? And what technical insight did you guys have to comment about under this article?

I, for one, like it here; It’s kind of like an after-tech blog — It’s good to leave the shop-talk at the apple store. There is plenty of ‘tech’ related stuff that matters scattered here like the NSA posts, for instance.

We trolls sometimes find common ground; Even bobbo has grown on me {to be fair, so do ticks from time to time} and we have had some stimulating discourse.

We seem to be at liberty to interject matierial not related to the OP anytime, anywhere {and I do like tangents} — Maybe you guys should try that (Oh. I guess you already did. Never mind).

So for the occasional good spread of veiwpoints and rants on some topic, this is the place for me — If I wanted to talk only gadgets, I’d be trolling Kim Komando.

Mostly aggregating other people’s work? I recall her radio show used to be more pure. Lots of space to fill I suppose.

“Things to do when its Cold Outside” /// Here in N. Cali we only got 4 nights below freezing and none the year before. Coincidently, I did review the process by which to brew my own alcohol and I have come to the conclusion I would like to just do simple sugar/water fermenting and then FREEZE DISTILL which I won’t be able to do this year anymore and odds are it will be another 2-3-4 years before it gets cold enough to try again. Maybe Global Warming will kick back in and it will get freezing every winter?

“”Say Timmmmay, do you think there is any intentionality beyond my isolated dithering, or have you just been worn down by my constant brainless liburulism?

IDK, bobbo; I can’t rant in a vacuum and you just happen to put me in a mind to string words together more than some — This is not always a good thing. I have just reduced you to being something that must exist to be bounced off of; You have been objectified so ’embrace the horror’. {too snarky??}

Good quote and very true. I have to laugh at myself when that oxymoron applies to myself.

hmmmm….. not so much that there are other opposing IDEAS but more so that those ideas are back up with absolute and total CRAP!!!!

EG–can’t discuss gun control with idgits that come at it from “Guns don’t kill people.”

EG–can’t discuss AGW with idgits that come at it from “It was cold here last night.”

EG–as in the list is endless. Every whack a bird conservative ((nay===REPUBLICAN)) idea is debateable by clever minds such as Bill Buckley….. but few and far between in all reality. But more aquitly (sic in honor of those who sub vocalize while reading) liberalism may more at its roots just be not so hypocritical as are the more isolated bubble dwelling Pukes. EG–The Devil Cheney being Anti-Gay until one of his kiddies is born that way, then he is liberal on that subject. And so it goes with all the issues. Asshole hypocrites.

and you just happen to put me in a mind to string words together more than some —//// some…. what?===people/ideas/subjects/original posts???? But I feel good to have escaped the burden of your salvation.

This is not always a good thing. I have just reduced you to being something that must exist to be bounced off of; /// No, not me. Only (if true) your idea of me ***to yourself****. I remain always: bobbo, the incandescent flame of iconoclastic solipsism.

You have been objectified so ‘embrace the horror’. /// I am untouched.

{too snarky??} //// There is a VERY IRONIC MOMENT here. Can YOU TIMMMMMAY embrace the ……………sweet amber of coincidence. In some out of body, esp, time traveling moment at 9:39 am I Magic Eight Balled you:

“We think in tangents, and believe ourselves the center of the Universe.”

But, I am the center of the universe — We must all have the proper perspective. All the rest of yall’s existance is as a 2-dimensional smear along the outer surface. The next time someone says “turn it inside-out” then I suggest people think about the implications of that obscene invocation.

Yea, lots of those tv physicists that try to ‘dumb it down’ for the {sometimes huge, if it’s on discovery or the science channel} viewing audience get it wrong — Green, in particular, really rubs me wrong; Not because he dumbed it down too much but because he is just plain wrong.

As I look at the current options for 6 and 8 cores or more with hyperthreading, it bothers me that FOR INSTANCE: I can’t put video encoding on two cores and leave two free for websurfing or downloading. There “seems to be” overslop with the OS not regulating itself to specific cores. I don’t see why that would change with more cores.

With enough cores, it would seem to me that a system might get slow but should never stall, yet I don’t think that is true. CPU’s, Motherboards, and OS’s all interacting in a way we, at least “me”, do not understand WHILE we are bombarded with false advertising claims.

What would anyone build in order to get smooth non-stuck performance while multi-tasking? Say video capture, while transcoding, while websurfing with 8 open windows, and then I want to download something?

Let me rephrase this. “If” I set my encoder to use two cores and it does, then if these two cores max the cpu cores at 100% –should I not be able to still surf the web very smoothly as Firefox should be using one or both of the two “free” cores?

I did this a while back and it was my experience that my web surfing still got stuck when my two cpu cores were maxed at 100% while two other cores were about idle. I assume “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Seems like “some program” ought to be able to assign/restrict certain programs to certain cores thereby allowing for “guaranteed multi-tasking.”

Does this make any sense philosophically, or, what program do I need to use?

Try using Process Explorer to tweak down the priority on the transcoder {the in-house sliders with those programs never work} — do this by right-clicking the relevant process and select a very low priority; Maybe even ‘idle’.

In my experience, ‘idling’ the process does not really cause it to take longer to transcode as much of the machine resources are being taken up by moving the data in and out of swap and temp space — this is why placing the swap file on the front of a separate physical drive from the one the videos are stored is so important. That way, the heads will be sitting right where they need to be between swap and data without having to travel all across the disk. If you are hearing lots of disk activity (crunching) then back up and punt with the placement of swap.

What encoder are you using?? Professional stuff?? If you don’t need to get too fancy, then I find ConvertXtoDvd to be an excellent program. It uses ‘constant quality’ encoding so that it will often look like the disk is only partially written with, say, 2 gig for a 2 hour movie depending on content. Don’t let the small-looking write fool you as it did me — It’s doing its thing. Just look at the results to see if it is satisfactory.

The early multi-core CPUs from AMD exposed a problem with TSC-derived QueryPerformanceCounter readings, as they would be affected by spread-spectrum and power management speed variations. While this was eventually solved in later processor designs by making the TSC clock independent of the CPU clock, the PM Timer on ACPI systems became the counter source of choice, requiring a /USEPMTIMER override in the Windows BOOT.INI file to enforce its use. On both Intel and AMD machines using the ACPI HAL together with the /USEPMTIMER boot switch, the IRQs 0 & 8 will still report a HPET, but now the QueryPerformanceFrequency will report 3.579545 MHz, which is the frequency of the PMTIMER. This has the express advantage of being independent of the CPU frequency and still provides a very reasonable sub-microsecond resolution and accuracy. Ironically the very high count rates obtained in TSC mechanisms (as compared with PMTIMER or the Intel HPET device) can cause a problem that the measurable time intervals are too short: there is an upper limit to the usefulness of a counter that overflows early. It can also be a nuisance that the ever-increasing processor speeds of newer processor designs make this usable time span shorter still.

I checked mine and I have the /USEPMTIMER in boot.ini — It was required to make Bioshock work right, if I recall.

Check your memory utilization too. If your memory is maxed out and getting too many page faults to a busy disk and busy io subsystem, it’s gonna stall.
Loading a browser with all the bells and whistles could be main memory consuming .

Ctrl delete and check. How much mem do u have? I have 16 GB and it complains when I run a heavy app like adobe premiere

Thank you, Dallas! I think that may be part of the issue. Remember a while back when the sector size for new drives changed from 512 bytes to 4096 bytes?? — those drives don’t ‘align’ properly with XP and generates lots of extra disk reads. Those drives on XP would be THE WORST place for the swapfile — I completely forgot about it.

Multicore and hardware multithreading certainly are resources that capable software puts to work!

How the software utilizes (or not) the available resources is the performance discrepancies you see.

The key challenge is that the compiler industry has not quite kept up with hardware tricks… ie software is hard. The OS is what manages those hardware resources. First things, first.

Your mileage may vary on how well the APPLICATION software is also written to negotiate with the OS on those resources. If the Application is non-threaded for instance, the best system will not be fully utilized.

That sounds about right. Jump in a little more here, Dallas. bobbo’s machine should not bog down while transcoding a previously captured video. Correct? I am also assuming that it would be necessarily boggy from time to time while capturing video {or he’d lose frames every time a page refreshes} but he’s holding out for a dedicated capture card for that.

What if his captured video at 60 fps is then ‘recaptured’ with a utility like FRAPS or DXTORY to set it to the desired framerate possibly allowing him to skip the Xilisoft transcoding altogether?? I guess, this would work by playing the video with it running {using ffmpeg and directX} and that could be minimized.

“”Dxtory is a movie capture tool for DirectX and OpenGL Applications. Since data is directly acquired from a surface memory buffer, it is very high-speed and works with small load

“”The codec of Dxtory can record original pixel data as it is. You can obtain the highest quality by lossless video source.

“”The first bottleneck of the high-bitrates capture is a writing speed to storage. If it is environment with two or more storage, writing-speed can be improved using this function. There is no necessity of using a special file system.

Over time, I have played with every technique and others that you have named except for that last one (usepmtimer). Its never been “fun” to do and it has never provided any demonstrable good. Thankfully, without doing anything, my system doesn’t stutter all too often, so its really only a minor irritation/would be fun to fix if it was fun to fix.

I’m currently transcoding with Xillisoft. Its very slow, longer than real time most of the time and then for some unknown reason it speeds up to about 75% of real time. I don’t know why.

A week ago I started using AverMedia Game Capture USB Box to record component signal off my Cablebox. It works quite well but will only hardware incode at 60fps making a file size twice as large as I need or want so I’m still transcoding to get file sizes of half that original. The AverMedia C027 pci-e card and the StarTech card both use a similar h.264 encoder at the 29.97 fps which would “remove” any heavy cpu use from my routine and let me websurf as desired. I’m still researching this purchase and the dedicated machine I’ll probably build to house the card. Something to do.

Xilisoft hu? Well, at least I now know that you aren’t doing any unsavory yet legal things like ripping dvds —

Xilisoft: Thank you for supporting Xilisoft! What about just ripping from the latter half of the movie? For example, if you enter “1:48:18″ for start time, can you get the latter half ripped in this way? Thank you. -Jack.

Me: Thank you for your reply. Say I decide to see a movie my local movie theater, paying $30 [the cost of your DVD Ripper] for a ticket to see the movie “District 9,” under the impression that I would enjoy the entire film. At 100 minutes into the movie, I get a tap on my shoulder from an usher, telling me I need to leave, and see the rest of the 12 minutes tomorrow, since my ticket does not “validate” me to see the entire move as a whole.

I’ve got one of those avermedia capture cards lying around somewhere … I never used it as the video card occludes the slot on this cheap DG9650T board. I think that one was really more of a ‘PC tuner’ with rf inputs.

Ah, well. I guess I don’t know much about ripping or capturing.. I’m mostly going the other way but that should not be relevant to diagnosing your bogging machine. Still, it is not intuitive to me that the cards will not rip to whatever standard framerates are out there.. the 60 fps sounds like an interpolated frame every other one — perhaps that is the reason several reviewers say that their videos come out a bit ‘fuzzy’?? Even the free app FRAPS has the options 60, 50, 30, and a custom input box with 29.97 fps plugged in all with a nice little box to tick if you wish to ‘lock framerate’.

and verify that the ratio settles out to 1.00000 Don’t worry about the actual frequency of the timer being ‘fast’ or anything.
————————————————–
The only other thing I can think of is to verify that the priority template for windows is right to begin with. That is: processor scheduling should be ticked for PROGRAMS and memory usage should be ticked for PROGRAMS.

I hope you get it fixed as there is currently a shortage of digital media on the internet.

In previous years, I could get a satisfying amount of stuff from the cablebox firewire port but a few months ago the cable co started encrypting almost everything and it no longer works so I started looking for alternatives.

That capture box works just fine but I realize I could save myself a lot of time by not transcoding if it would capture at 5000Mkbs and 30 fps. The box has 3 capture options Optimal, Best, and Long Play. Xillisoft shows all three modes to use 60fps and I see no drop down menues to change that. I assume game players “need” that capture rate to make the game action smooth. It is not needed for nature, travel, and history shows.

This card implies it has the 30 fps rate and if it doesn’t, I’ll send it back.

but I am worried about software/cpu conflicts affecting any computer card and actually do prefer the ease of using a breakout box.

That first box is actually quite SWEET as it stands alone by recording to an attached usb hard drive.

I might though go with this box as it should capture video with little interaction with the computer that it must attach to in order to run. It even more strongly implies it will capture at the rate I wish although such is not directly stated. AS ALWAYS—I’d like to mix and match the capabilities that are out there and just not packaged to my preferences.

Strange. I’m looking in the manual for that first one and it doesn’t say a word about framerate. The bitrate for the low, med, high for each of the resolutions is shown on pg. 40.

The website notes that it is 30 fps at 1080i when recording but with {up to??} 60 fps ‘passthrough.’

I’m sure that internal card would let you have the native framerate. I wouldn’t mind playing around with mine but, as I said, it won’t fit in the case without extracting an already dodgy (connection-wise) video card.

See above about the possible workaround I was trying to bounce off Dallas. That is, to *recapture* with fraps or DXtory possibly skipping Xilisoft altogether. Inquiring minds want to know.

If you’ll stick me a small sample of captured video onto a cyberlocker or something, I’ll run it through virtualdubmod to see what has gone on inside that box.

It’s a slow day. I did a little digging on the H.264 dropping of frames (b-pictures) without re-encoding to decrease file size and found a neat discussion.

Hmm. The concensus is no. first off, there are no ‘bidirectional pictures’ in that codec. If the final output is to be kept for use in the digital world and not a stand-alone player then reducing the framerate will not appreciably reduce your file size — those extra frames aren’t taking up many bits, especially if it is slow scenes with artful transitions.

One commenter there found a script to drop them using Handbrake but then determined that his bitrate was actually halved.

“”The Canon 7d uses only h.264 compression for video. If it had an MJPEG mode (sequence of JPEG stills), then file size would be proportional to frame rate assuming intraframe compression was held constant. However, for equivalent video quality MJPEG requires much higher bit rate vs. h.264.

Let me know if you managed to produce a 30 fps file which has 1/2 the bitrate of the original capture… I have a feeling you don’t need to transcode but just drop bit rate on the box to start with– you may have to find modified firmware if you are already using the lowest setting {8mbps for 72op when you may be satisfied with 4}.

bobbo, the idiot savant of home built computers only operating at 50%says:

Ain’t that a bitch? …. and I was feeling all wet and wonderful thinking “it makes sense” that a compression program should be very efficient when close to the same data field is captured at twice the rate==as you say, the data should not change that much.

GSpot only confirms Xillisoft and even Microsoft file size reporting. As it should.

I find the 5000 Mbs capture for video about as low as I want to go on 1080 before the picture degrades too much.

When the laser heated 3D Holographic drives come out with umpteen nanoflops of storage, it will be nice to have a few films at original pristine data densities. Until then, black coats will have to look splotchy.

Thanks for the link to GSpot. I had used that before upgrade and then lost it. Good to have it back. Now I have to “re-learn” how to make any .exe program part of my mouse’s right click context menu. I do hate doing something only once every 1-2-3 years. I have to relearn it each time. Wish I had better memory chips.

AND—I think you are right about the frame rate not making much difference because the difference in file size between the capture and the transcoded should make up about all the file size difference?

Given the screen shots are identical between the two units, I suspect the HD Ezrecorder uses the same bit rate and the reduction of frame rates doesn’t make a difference so THAT piece of equipment would not give the smaller file sizes desired.

THAT means the risk that the pci-e cards don’t provide that option either is more likely. The specs just don’t go into that detail. Someone not half asleep could do the math on the recording times on a 1TB hard drive and get close though?

Thanks for your help. I’m getting everything I want right now. Just fun to tinker with what would be more efficient. I don’t like the “idea” of my cpu on for 2 days straight working hard to do what the hardware encoder could do with a few lines of code???

No, I think that AverMedia pci-e card will give you the native FR. They started out as tv tuner cards for pc, after all. If you feed it with HDMI it is going to give you the native framerate. If you feed it with S-video then it is certainly going to give you the native framerate (at 480p).

Wow! Revisiting this thread and I see it got techie, cool. Gives me an opportunity to share my build which I did just last weekend.

I got tired of counting to 10 waiting for Lightroom to start so about a year ago decided to build a home-brew photo editor. Never built a PC before so it literally took most of a year to research and buy all the parts but I’m in no hurry. About 4 weeks ago I took delivery of the last part, the CPU. So for a month or so I’ve been stepping over or walking around this big pile of boxed parts. I don’t know what got into me but last weekend I bit the bullet and started the unboxing. It’s not that difficult to build a PC but also not without the possibility of frustration or disaster. For instance, I bent a pin when installing the CPU and it wouldn’t boot the first time I started it. Spent hours on builder forums until I was advised to to check the socket pins. I didn’t want to do it because it pretty much meant completely disassembling the machine and rebuilding. Fortunately, after tearing it apart I was able to straighten the pin.

Anyway, it’s done now. Those of you familiar with the Windows Experience Rating know it’s a measure of 5 key elements of performance on a scale from1.0 to 7.9: Processor, Memory, Graphics, Gaming and Hard Disk. This computer scored 7.8, 7.8, 7.9, 7.9, and 7.9 respectively.

No apps or internet installed as yet (that may be another month) but if the speed at which Mahjong loads is any indication it’s going to be a screamer.

Thanks for the tips Tim. I was drawn to the Corsair because it was the first tool-less case I stumbled upon. Literally, the only tool I used was a Phillips screwdriver for 7 screws to mount the mobo. Everything else, SSD, HDD, Optical Drive, you name it, snapped into place like a kid’s plastic model after they discovered we were getting high on airplane glue.

“kill Windows Experience and all other Win7 features with fire”

Are you recommending Win 8.1, Linux, or just some other benchmark. I’ll do more serious benchmarking once I start loading apps.

p.s. I actually like Win7 and use it for a couple things {Metro LL and Metro LL DLC}.

What I meant was that there is lots of overhead spy crap on there that makes the disk crunch all the time. It goes a long way to stop that just to disable all those “features” buried in control panel — Start with User Experiance and untick everything else on that list.

I’m just a home hobbyist. Next project: take a toaster apart and put it in a glass box so I can watch the bread toast.

So…. I’ve built 4 computers for myself. One is “exploded” and mounted on a piece of plywood. My first go at making my own dedicated video capture machine. I think I’ve been lucky. The smoke test (first time turning on the computer) has worked every time so far.

I’m curious. How did the pin on the cpu get bent? Did you do it?? Was that in your mind as a possibility as you tore the machine apart??

What scared me the first time was the amount of pressure it took to get the over center cam lock of the cpu cooler to snap in place. Sure felt like it was going to break…. MEANING… I was afraid something was wrong. Never force anything is my motto. Hasn’t been an issue after my first build.

I put a 14 x 14 inch electrostatic air cleaner over my main case fan. About once a month I clean the filter. I like cleaning the air in my room while keeping the computer guts clean too. Just like I use the exhaust air to proof my bread baking.

I love multi-tasking.

Your time to boot using that SSD is what should first impress everyone?

Bobo said: “I’ve built 4 computers for myself. One is “exploded” and mounted on a piece of plywood.”

Hee, hee, hee. In my mind’s eye I can see it over the fireplace mantel like a taxidermied moose head.

Bobo: “I’m curious. How did the pin on the cpu get bent? Did you do it?? Was that in your mind as a possibility as you tore the machine apart??”

Beginner’s mistake. I installed the cpu after the mobo was in place. Should have done it when it was more accessible. I was holding the cpu by the edges with tips of my fingers (so as not to get oils on it) and when hovering about a half inch above the socket it slipped and fell on the pins. I really didn’t think it could possibly have done damage so proceeded to install without checking.

The mobo has trouble-shooting leds associated with major components. When the machine would hang the led associated memory would remain lit. Obvious to think it a ram issue but spent hours testing memory using memtest86+ and all was good. Reading builder’s forums someone advised checking the pins. Apparently the pin I bent had to do with ram.

Now-a-days the pins are on the mobo and the cpu is smooth and flat on the bottom. The pins come looking like a miniature pine forest that suffered a high wind: foliage stripped and trunks bent down to the ground. The corner of my cpu pushed one of the bent trees until it came into contact with another. That was all it took.

Bobo said: Your time to boot using that SSD is what should first impress everyone?

I think what impresses friends and neighbors is just that I built a computer. They think I’m some kind of wizard. I’ve not yet told anyone how far PnP has come. I’ll bask for awhile. Having said that, the boot speed is incredible.

“I really didn’t think it could possibly have done damage so proceeded to install without checking.” /// Natural born optimist. I hate that about myself. Always assuming the best. Ha, ha. “Life is like installing a cpu on a motherboard.” You get better at it with practice, but usually only get one chance. ((thus spake bobbo))

“Reading builder’s forums someone advised checking the pins.” /// You were very very lucky with that advice. Course you had to work for it… but still lucky. I still recall my sense of satisfaction and wonder when the cpu seats inself on the motherboard…like it was meant to be there. A thing of precision to marvel at. Optimist or….some other word. I think if I had dropped it, I would have looked at it ((too fast)) and missed any bent pin…and then I would not have known if it fell into the motherboard properly or not. Very lucky again ((I assume)) that the pin could be straightened for proper reinsertion. HEY–this is exactly what does make an expert==>experience.

The best thing about building your own is the sense of control/understanding you get. As you say, its mostly PnP, but I have no fear going into my case. Be forwarned: cables and connection get loose when you play with your computer and can cause all kinds of weird symptoms. In fact, when things go wrong in unobvious ways, the first thing I do now is unplug and replug everything except cpu and ram. I have found several mice going bad that way….and as stated…bad mice cause problems not immediately obvious.

Tim–thanks for volunteering your expertise here. I checked the test captures I made on first getting my AverMedia Game Capture Box and failed to notice that the “good” setting does capture at my target rate of 5MB/sec AND now that I recognize that the higher frame rate is near negligible for file size, I will now capture at the middle quality setting and no longer transcode. This will save 3 days a week of transcoding time===THANK YOU.

I have also noticed that at the “good” setting the picture quality seems to be just a bit jagged at picture element edges. That edge goes mostly away when the mp4/h.264 file is transcoded into a new mpeg4 file. I guess the container format should not make a difference and that different players will present the file with different quality????—ANYWAY==I’m very happy to record on the good setting and see how my next hdtv ((I’m still using my 25yo SD Big Screen, its dark but still works!!)) displays it. If the jagged edges are too pronounced, I’ll transcode it then, if I feel like it.

Are you seeing these jaggies on the computer screen? I’ll have to look it up but I believe that NTSC has changed over the years between SD and HD {chroma, luminance, PIXEL ASPECT (they used to be round(sort of))/pitch, that kind of thing} — I remember when Atari messed up older televisions. And, of course the SD isn’t going to like progressive video unless it’s being ruined going through a set-top box first.

A beer at 8:25 AM Left Coast?? I do hope for your social integration that you live in Central Europe? …. but drinking beer should hardly even count.

I look at my captured and transcoded stuff on my 31 inch HDTV that I use as a monitor…. or on my 17 inch monitor==my 23 inch got nicked so I’m one short of my triple set up. So busy capturing new stuff, hardly ever watch the old stuff.

My system uses win 7, so xp drivers isn’t an issue???

Given my viewing TV’s are both SD analogue ((Yes==5 Displays in one room, I had to stop listening to music at the same time)) ==all the recordings/ota/cable pics look good to me. I think being shown on SD makes for a very “soft” image, and sitting 20 feet away at my (computer) desk obviates many ills. Actually makes me wonder if I just should go ahead and capture stuff at say DVD quality, and save lots of hard drive space.

EVERY TIME I make a jump in technology, I do wish I had done it 3-5 years earlier? The Aver capture box has been out for years. Would have been so nice to have been using it all these years. I hesitate to go with the tech because I assumed the powers that be would lock it down. Now that I have the box, they probably will???

TVs/computers, too much just a simple distraction. I should READ more. Like exercise or playing chess, I just find those activities too stressful. Fun though too from time to time.

Rats. No, those drives work with Win7 — Unless you really mean “drivers for xp running under win7″

Are you running with 64 bit?? I find it a hassle. It depends on what you are doing.

———————————————–
I keep thinking you’re on xp for some reason. I should try my current operations on Win7 to see if I experience similar issues.

On Friday, I had a rather tall order from someone I had never expected it from. It’s kind of a gift thing so I’ve plunged into it — 81 gig to be processed and written to dvd yeilding 36 episodes of a popular series. This needs to be completed by Tuesday afternoon. So, like I said: Tall Order!

It’s been DLing, transcoding, listening to NA, AJ, Clyde Lewis, browsing heavy, and concurrent watching of them with VLC. The only hiccups I’ve had (except for juggling disk space which I’m out of and my usb ‘backup solution’ is awful) is that every now and again VLC will just close when starting the videos — it usually works by the second or third attempt; Something IS occasionally bumping heads.

Yes, my win7 runs flawlessly also even with that 2 gig but I do try and strip most of the obvious crap out of the installs. So, I just know that your issue is not insurmountable and should be doing glassy fine just like you want except for mayby capturing a live stream while doing all that other stuff could get dodgy.

AMD quad-core 3.1 Mhz, Win 7/64. I haven’t noticed any real issues with 64 bits other than some programs I had in 64 bit XP did not run…. like my video card, mp3 Direct Cut (or was that mpgvcr?), GSpot (looks nicer than MediaInfo that installed a right click context menu so I kept functionality) I did step up to 8 GB ram but have never seen my system use more than 4. I think my transcoders never used cuda or ram as I think some do. Years ago I was heavy into photos and photoshop but hardly anything the last few years.

I currently have over 2000 self burned DvD’s but about 2 years ago the cost curve was close enough I started keeping everything on hard drives. I have about 15 of them full right now.

Why don’t you blow your friend out of the water and give him his series on an SSD? THAT would blow his mind!!

What series?? I was a big downloader on “Box Tv” a freebie based in the UK before it quit about 4 months ago. I got and like a lot of the British Stuff but I have to say HBO and CineMax etc have some good series. Dexter being one of the best??

I should be building my own ferro cement boat, but TV as a hobby keeps me off the streets.

What blank dvd’s do you use? I had a bunch of cheapos all go bad at the same time and switch with good results to Tayo Yuden. Hard drives are even better====UNTIL YOU DROP ONE!!! ARRGH!!!

“”Why don’t you blow your friend out of the water and give him his series on an SSD?

I wish. No computer. No Samsung player to handle usb .MKVs — This month has been the first time I’ve actually made dvds since we got the Samsung BlueRay player back in 2010, or so, that I can just stick one of the Seagate ‘wallet drives’ into. To really be a wet fish-slap, one always looses quality when changing format (transcoding).

“”What blank dvd’s do you use?

Currently, this is a pile of red, office-looking hp +r cheapos; I rarely get a bad burn on anything but that may be because I ‘cut my teeth’ on vcdeasy which came with the warning to not even touch the mouse when it was burning. The only fail I’ve had out of this whole stack was one where I was DLing and surfing while burning. I’m comparing it to a Memorex {which I do remember being crap} and, while I’m not familiar with the exact substrate, the hp’s look a little more deeper red than magenta over the memorex. I usually burn at 8x. I’ve heard the best are Verbatim and then only the ones manufactured in Singapore.

Ha!! I know of a certain university which hosts an engineer’s *concrete canoe contest* from time to time — A ‘fuck y’all’ pipe dream of mine has always been to obtain a barge and live in international waters — build me one??

My crappy dvd (plain white, forget name) all burned just fine and even confirmed after the burn but 6 months later 95% became unreadable.

I’ve seen the ads for Shameless but didn’t give it a look. Then I was channel surfing and watched and episode. I watched the whole series one year per day. Its good to keep the continuity fresh like that.

Still, the life of low lifes is still glamorized on Shameless even with the sporadic horrible. Their family unity is rarely seen. The stability of the eldest daughter would have been lost to early pregnancy….. still hollywood. Too bad BoxTV is off the internet now, I definitely would have dl’d the UK version for its own pleasure and for comparison.

If I were to burn dvd’s again, I’d try to use those “stone” dvd’s supposed to last forever. I’m so into hard drive storage…I’m only slightly curious to give my burned TY’s (made in Japan) a check view. Almost doesn’t matter as they were all done at SD format and all my Hard Drive stuff is done in HD. When I finally go for the tv, it will be fun to see if anything I have is actually watchable.

I went to KMart on Black Friday to get the 60 inch Vizio for $668 but the store was closed so I missed the purchased. KILLS ME to consider getting the same machine for $200 more now, or $600 more for another brand. I constantly read that “basically” these tvs are “all the same” and then I read just the opposite. My conclusion: both are right.

Even though you burn the Series to dvd for your friend, I hope you back it up (and for yourself) on hard drives?

“”My crappy dvd (plain white, forget name) all burned just fine and even confirmed after the burn but 6 months later 95% became unreadable.

Yea, disk rot. I’m looking at some old ‘staples’ Cds now that the silver on the top has flaked off — That is where the data is, that laminate on the very top with no protection whatsoever — If I thought I could keep them balanced, I would try lacquering them or something.

“”I definitely would have dl’d the UK version for its own pleasure

I noticed that many were complaining that it wasn’t the british one.

“”I went to KMart on Black Friday to get the 60 inch Vizio

Garbage. And, I think it maxes out at 720p (probably more like some over post-processed 600p hybrid ). Get some quality in an affordable range like a 42 inch Samsung LCD or something — after service mode alignments SUPER SWEET! — Gees, you really do need to troll Kim Komando.

“”I hope you back it up

Are you fucking kidding me?? 81 gig in 3 days on a line that has a 150 gig cap?? I’ll back it up if I have to re-invent quantum chrystaloghraphic storage.

So….I note on my AverMedia Capture Box that it works Very Well on one kind of SeaGate External Drive but is Very Glitchy on another SeaGate Ext Drive.

Makes me think my ENTIRE OS ((Win 7/64bit)) might have a negative interaction with some or all External Drives.

If you find a fix for this…… let us know? ((I recall some joke about Marketing Departments being paid to figure out how to make glitches into: “Features.”))

Anyway, again with your help, the need to have my Ext Drives connected and transcoding is about at an end as the AverMedia Box should initially capture in the format I will want to keep.

Now, what would be nice, is to find a good h.264 editor to remove commercials. I use Avidemux and it is very glitchy and unpleasant to use on these files—eg, distorted sound, no picture while scrolling, etc. I just got “Free Video Editor” that is supposed to work…. we’ll see.

Its never good to brag about how well one’s computer is working. I’ve never seen one last more than 3 days after such incidents! (smile!)

I’ve been initially cursed with three different Seagate usb drives — They all have their own ‘personality’ {features} it seems. My first one was Freeagent Go. — after moving boo koos of data over to it I later found that all the very large files were broken.

The second was a Freeagent Goflex — that one got trashed day one by writing folders to it that had too much nesting and long filenames which ruined its partition table — I *think* part of them is a FAT partition, or something.

This third big one is 2 tb Goflex Desk which is, um, a little bit special. One must be careful not to write a whole huge directory to it at a time or it will melt down. If it has no activity for 5 minutes then it can’t be ejected right or accessed {It does the dangerous thing of asking if you wish to format it!!! — Yes, If i’m transcoding something and it pauses or completes then the next access of it will ask to format the drive — so script files inputting ‘y’, ‘y’, ‘y’ all day are right out. I’ll probably get drunk and hit return anyways one day}. And those ‘special features’ you mention?? Apparently, the fix for this one is to flash it with firmware that disables the activity light. Really. That is all they said.

They are both recent models one still for sale at NewEgg Seagate Drives: 2TB and 3TB–for some reason $10 cheaper than bare drives of the same capacity. As far as I can tell, they both work fine with my computer. Sometimes they are not recognized when first plugged in and I have to go to Computer Management and give them a Drive Letter. Like you, I get paranoid I will screw up and click on reformat them and lose all those shows!!!

I just know the AverMedia constantly needs a hard reset when using one of them, and works as desired with the other one. “Something” makes them different. Amusingly, the one that is glitchy is 2TB while the one that works is 3TB==while the AverMedia Box says it works only up to 2TB Drives. My experience is that it works with a 4GB Memory Stick (No conflicting external power source I thought) and with the “too large” Seagate.

I have virtualdub and will try it on next occasion.

What site did you grab Shameless from? I’ve been nailed twice by Comcast and so no longer dl. Safer to use the analogue hole, but it does take more time?

Pros and Cons to all we do. I need to go back and find a screen capture utility for Infinity Live Streaming. “I believe the Sony Betamax lawsuit gives legal authority for this as I do pay for the programing.”

“”Amusingly, the one that is glitchy is 2TB while the one that works is 3TB==while the AverMedia Box says it works only up to 2TB Drives.

It’s the 32 bit limit — it can only ‘address’ 2 gig. The rest of the drive is still there, though — try multiple partitions on it.

“”This means that a 32-bit OS cannot use more than 2 GB total, which means 6 GB for all applications including virtual memory. Of course, this has nothing to do with RAM, because the other 2 GB would be stored in the paging file, limited to your hard-drive’s speed.

OK–that makes sense “but” its the 3TB drive that works flawlessly. Now–I do have 2 TB filled with other stuff so only 1 TB is available for actual “new” recordings….but I’d think the whole 3TB drive still needs to be “read” or whatever is going on.

I’ve watched All of Season 1 and 2 of shameless and don’t recall the heart monitoring issue….. I am always multi-tasking which means a few years from now when I watch it again, I will pick up on all kinds of lost details.

Hmmmm….so many show grab my interest at the start… and then fade fairly quickly. Just watched Oblivion. Very much better than its reviews. I guess being a Scientologist has its burdens??? Ha, ha.

Coincidentally, my favorite website gave away a video converter/editor (not confirmed/tested yet) yesterday. So, I have 2 programs to check when I pull my first recordings from the AverMedia Box at the “good” setting.

And if that 2TB is a Seagate Goflex Desk such as mine then that one is a flakey PITA.

“”Now–I do have 2 TB filled with other stuff so only 1 TB is available for actual “new” recordings….but I’d think the whole 3TB drive still needs to be “read” or whatever is going on.

The box seems to indicate that it’s some 32 bit something with it’s embeddeds. — If you format one of those 3 TB with win7 so that it has that extra gig in a second partition then the box *should* recognize it as 2 usb drives to choose from.

Also, that box is going to truncate the usable storage after so many sectors so that if you go back and write files with win7 (which can address it all) then the box will find it full while win7 still sees the last free gig. This is the situation where a 2nd partition on it just makes more sense.

Winx — I tested that one last month for a friend. It was very fast (sometimes bumping up to 90 fps) and the quality seemed o.k. but it is not one for anybody who likes to flip switches; That thing has almost no user input for what it wants to do — This is not always a bad thing for many. Also, it’s a bit bloated with stuff nobody wants in a video converter.

Free’s better than paying.

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